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The Life of Mise en Scene Visual Style and British Film Criticism 1946 78 John Gibbs Ready To Read

The document discusses the book 'The Life of Mise en scène: Visual Style and British Film Criticism, 1946-78' by John Gibbs, which explores the history of visual style analysis in British film criticism during the postwar period. It highlights the revival of interest in detailed film criticism and the significance of the mise-en-scène tradition. The book aims to provide a more accurate historical context for modern style-based criticism and enrich the understanding of this critical field.

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100% found this document useful (2 votes)
38 views92 pages

The Life of Mise en Scene Visual Style and British Film Criticism 1946 78 John Gibbs Ready To Read

The document discusses the book 'The Life of Mise en scène: Visual Style and British Film Criticism, 1946-78' by John Gibbs, which explores the history of visual style analysis in British film criticism during the postwar period. It highlights the revival of interest in detailed film criticism and the significance of the mise-en-scène tradition. The book aims to provide a more accurate historical context for modern style-based criticism and enrich the understanding of this critical field.

Uploaded by

knfzesvoh3215
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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THE LIFE OF
MISE-EN-SCÈNE
VISUAL STYLE AND BRITISH FILM CRITICISM, 1946-78

JOHN GIBBS
The life of
mise-en-scène
The life of
mise-en-scène
Visual style and British film
criticism, 1946–78

John Gibbs

Manchester University Press


Manchester and New York
distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan
Copyright © John Gibbs 2013

The right of John Gibbs to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted
by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published by Manchester University Press


Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK
and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

Distributed in the United States exclusively by


Palgrave Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York,
NY 10010, USA

Distributed in Canada exclusively by


UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall,
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data


A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for

ISBN 978 0 7190 8866 7 hardback

First published 2013

The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any
external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guar-
antee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset in Sabon by
Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire
Contents

List of figures page vi


Acknowledgementsvii

Introduction1

1 Sequence11
2 Transfusion and transformation: Sight and Sound in the
1950s46
3 ‘Pistols for three, coffee for one’: the battle of form and
content, circa 1960 95
4 Movie: aims and contexts 126
5 Movie: approaches and analysis 161
6 Melodrama and mise-­en-­scène 194
7 Postscript: Bordwell’s interventions 223

Conclusion236

Bibliography243
Filmography261
Index269
List of figures

1.1 Sequence, No. 9 (1949) page 13


1.2 
My Darling Clementine (Twentieth Century Fox Film
Corporation, 1946) 31
1.3 
Meet Me in St. Louis (MGM / Loew’s Incorporated,
1944)32
2.1 Momma Don’t Allow (BFI, 1956) 57
2.2 A Diary for Timothy (Crown Film Unit, 1945) 64
2.3 Rebel Without a Cause (Warner Bros Pictures, 1955) 72
2.4 
The Searchers (Warner Bros Pictures / C.V. Whitney
Picture, 1956) 74
3.1 Oxford Opinion, No. 41 (October 1960) 98
3.2 
Comanche Station (Columbia Pictures Corporation /
Ranown Pictures Corp., 1960) 104
3.3 Definition, No. 1 (February 1960) 112
3.4 
Rio Bravo (Warner Bros Pictures / Armada
Productions, 1959) 115
4.1 
Le beau Serge (Ajym Films / Coopérative Générale du
Cinéma Français, 1958) 134
4.2 
River of No Return (Twentieth Century Fox Film
Corporation, 1954) 142
5.1 
The Courtship of Eddie’s Father (MGM / Euterpe /
Venice Productions, 1963) 164
5.2 
Rope (Warner Bros Pictures / Transatlantic Pictures,
1948)167
6.1 
Written on the Wind (Universal International Pictures,
1956) 198
6.2 
There’s Always Tomorrow (Universal International
Pictures, 1956) 201
Acknowledgements

I should like to thank V.F. Perkins, Charles Barr, Alan Lovell


and the late Ian Cameron for consenting to be interviewed, and
for the quality of the perceptions that they shared with me.
Revisiting their words I’m struck by how intelligent and generous
their comments were, in some cases providing an elegant form of
supervision as much as an answer to a specific historical question.
My particular appreciation is due to Douglas Pye, who has sup-
ported my research in this area over a number of years: I’m greatly
indebted to his insight, generosity and friendship. A number of
other people have been important to this history, at one time or
another, including Jonathan Bignell, Tom Brown, Stella Bruzzi,
John Bull, Alison Butler, Rebecca Deren, Lucy Fife Donaldson, Ed
Gallafent, Christine Geraghty, Jim Hillier, Eric Kindel, Andrew
Klevan, Stephen Lacey, Jacob Leigh, Iris Luppa, James MacDowell,
Derek Paget, Lisa Purse, Mike Stevenson, Lib Taylor and Deborah
Thomas. Alastair Phillips and the late Paul Stiff encouraged me in
different ways to return to this material after a number of years,
and I’m grateful, as always, to my excellent colleagues in the
Department of Film, Theatre & Television at the University of
Reading for providing such a supportive and stimulating working
environment. Reading University’s Research Endowment Trust
Fund supported the project, the members of the Sewing Circle, past
and present, deserve a collective mention, and I’m grateful to the
team at Manchester University Press for the opportunity.
Introduction

Recent years have seen a revival of interest in detailed film criticism.


Since the turn of the millennium, the field has witnessed what has
been described as a ‘renaissance of close analysis’.1 Traditions of
the interpretation of film style, pushed to the margins of film study
for thirty years, have returned to take up a central place in a newly
heterogeneous field, not displacing but enhancing other approaches.
Alongside the ‘widespread, international revival’ of ‘the British
school that was first associated with Movie in the ‘60s’, in Adrian
Martin’s words, a diverse group of writers have been working to
extend the subjects – and the methods – of detailed criticism, and
to establish links between different national, critical and theoretical
contexts.2
This book offers a history of the analysis of visual style in British
journals in the postwar period, both the ‘British school’ referred to
by Martin and other critical movements, more hazily remembered.
Notwithstanding the revival of interest in style-­based criticism and
the growing interest in history and critical historiography which
has begun to recontextualise other parts of the field – including
works which rub shoulders with this – the specific qualities of the
mise-­en-­scène tradition, and the other movements considered here,
are obscured to the newcomer to the field. The original material
this study explores is accessible only in copyright libraries and
secondary sources frequently characterised by misrepresentation.
The following pages uncover material which challenges the received
notions of critical history, and present an under-­explored period to
a new generation of scholars.
Alongside a broad ambition of enriching the context for the
modern practice of style-­based criticism, and the benefit of pro-
viding a more accurate history for its own sake, this book has
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